Chapter 399: Chapter 286: Forced Sale
"F... Factory Manager!!!"
A voice full of shock suddenly rang out, followed by the man beside him whose legs gave way. He looked fixedly at the scene inside the room, feeling like the air around him grew thinner and even breathing became so difficult.
Looking at the corpse hanging like a willow branch from the rope, he took deep breaths, but his mind grew increasingly faint.
Dead... Dead.
Hanged!
And... my client was the one hanged?
Xu Liang paused for a moment, then squinted his eyes and looked around.
This was the dormitory area of the factory. Although no people were nearby, the tin sheds were connected and surprisingly had terrible sound insulation!
Theoretically, if it was a murder... the commotion would be enough for the people in the surrounding tin sheds to know!!!
"Should we call the police?"
Beside him, although Su Yu and Yang Ruoxi were still a bit startled, they were slightly accustomed and did not have any extreme reactions.
Yang Ruoxi whispered, "Judging by the smell... he should have been dead for a while. If we don’t call the police, the body will start to rot..."
"Call the police then."
Xu Liang nodded and did not deny the suggestion.
Of course, he hesitated for a moment, then...
Lifted his foot and walked into the tin shed.
"Tap... tap tap..."
As he stepped over the threshold, Xu Liang seemed to be swallowed, instantly entering the stomach of the house!
The first sensation was... suffocation!
Extremely stuffy, like a giant steamer, even breathing was a luxury!
Xu Liang approached the hanging corpse, standing beneath it, watching those protruding eyes.
The body had already started to decompose and rot... The expression on the corpse was very ferocious, like a vengeful ghost had come, and there was evidence of incontinence in the lower body.
Xu Liang moved closer again.
The neck of the corpse was bloody and mangled, and the ten fingers were stained with blood. If nothing unexpected happened, it had struggled fiercely before hanging, even scratching its neck everywhere leaving marks!
If you looked closely, Zhang Shan’s spine was somewhat disabled, very twisted, which should have been congenital.
There was also a stool below the corpse, placed very neatly, with no signs of being kicked over or overturned....
Xu Liang formed a preliminary judgment in his heart and walked out of the old dormitory.
The man was still stupidly watching Zhang Shan’s corpse.
Until Xu Liang entered his sight, he returned to his senses with a start, immediately showing a face full of sorrow, hurriedly got up, hobbling out.
"Something happened, something happened!!!"
He shouted as he ran, and not long after, he went back into the factory.
Xu Liang did not stop him.
"What’s the situation?" Su Yu asked anxiously.
"Should we leave?"
Sun Zhongmin asked solemnly, his fists tightly clenched.
They had just arrived in Zhengyang City, only to encounter a dead body. He really didn’t want anyone he knew to stay here any longer!
"No need for now."
Xu Liang first comforted Sun Zhongmin, then paused and looked at Su Yu and Yang Ruoxi, speaking slowly:
"This person... should be the Zhang Shan we were looking for."
A straightforward statement.
Meaning, their client in Zhengyang City whom they’d flown hundreds of kilometers to meet... was dead!?
"The time of death was yesterday morning."
"Yes... it was around eight thirty, the time when he was on the phone with us."
Xu Liang took out a cigarette, put it in his mouth, then lit it with a lighter. A slight drag filled his lungs with nicotine, calming his emotions.
He remembered yesterday during the phone inquiry, Zhang Shan had abruptly hung up the call.
From previous inference, it might have been due to lack of money that he cut the call.
But now....
"It wasn’t due to lack of money, but because he was dead."
Xu Liang pointed at the corpse.
"Died suddenly, as for the cause of death..."
Based on his judgment... it can initially be ruled out as a suicide.
"The placement of the stool is not logical."
"A common misconception about hanging oneself is that when hanging, the struggling feet will be higher than the stool used for hanging."
"But in reality, when the neck is dropped with the rope... not only won’t the feet be higher, they are even slightly lower than the stool level!"
"Then, under the instinctive struggle of the body, the stool often gets kicked over or kicked askew!"
Saying this, Xu Liang paused and pointed at the stool neatly placed under the corpse.
Obviously, this violates common sense!
Most likely, the stool was placed under the corpse’s feet after death.
Meaning...
"Murder!?"
Su Yu was stunned; this was her first encounter with such a thing.
"Pretty much, a very clumsy setup."
After finishing speaking.
Xu Liang didn’t continue speaking, and just then, a flurry of footsteps appeared in his ears.
The few of them looked up.
They saw some people anxiously rushing from the factory, but... these people didn’t look healthy.
The vast majority of bodies were very deformed!
Moreover, Xu Liang even saw someone with just a torso..... Using hands instead of feet to constantly crawl on the ground over here.
Judging from their clothing, the living conditions weren’t great either.
Clothes washed until faded, full of oil stains, some already torn with patches everywhere.
Some didn’t even have patches, clothes tearing with holes revealing dirty skin underneath.
Suddenly.
Xu Liang was momentarily dazed, realizing they had already appeared by his side, he then slowly moved his body, turning sideways to make a gap.
The expected wailing and breakdown didn’t happen.
Most people showed some emotion, but replaced it with a despondent numbness.
Dozens of people just watched silently.
After a long silence, someone suddenly spoke up.
"Clean it up."
One of the men forcefully tugged at the corners of his mouth and began to speak.
After speaking, a few relatively healthy men quietly walked forward, stepping into the dark and decaying house.
One man held Zhang Shan’s corpse, while another stood on a stool to untie the rope.
"Wait, you’re not waiting for the police!?"
Xu Liang suddenly realized, instantly shocked.
These people... never considered calling the police!?
"Police?"
The crowd paused slightly, their faces showing a hint of complexity, but they did not stop their work.
"Bang!"
The rope was untied, the corpse fell into their arms.
Several people combined efforts to carry the corpse outside, finally covering it with a white cloth.
"Go and tidy up."
The leading man spoke again.
The others silently entered the house and began to tidy up the remains.
This scene...
It looked somewhat eerie!
"Want a smoke?"
The leading man looked at Xu Liang, pulling out a cigarette as a gesture.
His expressionless face tugged slightly, as if trying to squeeze out a smile, but after much lip movement, still couldn’t muster a smile.
Xu Liang accepted the cigarette handed to him, but didn’t rush to smoke it.
He frowned, suddenly retorting:
"The corpse..."
To his surprise, Xu Liang’s words were interrupted before he could finish by the man in front of him.
"I’m Liu Jinshui, deputy manager of Run Dong Weaving Plant." Liu Jinshui said.
Xu Liang paused, then changed his tone: "Xu Liang, lawyer at Qingshi City’s ’Conscience Law Firm’. Received a call from Mr. Zhang yesterday morning at eight, arranged to meet today."
Lawyer?
Liu Jinshui paused, then showed a hint of wistfulness and a bitter smile.
"Old Zhang hasn’t given up yet..."
Liu Jinshui sighed.
Before Xu Liang could ask further, he suddenly spoke:
"Lawyer Xu, you’ve seen him... nothing can be done to save him."
"As for any commission... it’s probably impossible now. Sorry for bringing you here, afterwards I’ll see if we can gather some people for reimbursing your travel expenses."
Return?
I flew over here with four people, and now going back without doing anything?
This is too humiliating to just leave like this...
"Mr. Liu, Zhang Shan might have died from... murder."
Xu Liang spoke, testing the other’s attitude.
Anyone hearing that someone close died from murder would likely be shocked and angry.
But....
"Hmm." Liu Jinshui nodded.
Very calm attitude.
Then took a drag of his cigarette, he looked at the people quietly handling the remains, his gaze gradually became blurred, as if lost in reminiscence.
Suddenly, he let out a self-mocking laugh.
"Lawyer Xu, you must have noticed... the people in our factory... aren’t very normal."
After speaking, without waiting for Xu Liang to respond, he continued.
"Our factory... huh, shouldn’t be called a factory."
"More than a decade ago, probably in the late ’80s, Old Zhang and I were traveling through the rivers and lakes, running a circus troupe."
"But running a circus was costly, plus Old Zhang and I had physical disabilities, couldn’t train animals, so our circus wasn’t a conventional one, but rather a form of self-mockery survival."
Which means...
Sideshow?
Xu Liang paused for a moment, turned to look at the man with only the upper body.
This was a peculiar category in the circus, can be understood as replacing the animals supposed to be showcased with odd-looking people.
Profiting by satisfying regular people’s curiosity.
In Western countries last century this was very popular!
But domestically...
"Better than begging." Liu Jinshui said, then paused and laughed self-deprecatingly, "But it’s not much better."
"Later, the domestic police started a crackdown on these types of circuses, we were forced to disband and begged for a while."
"Until one day, Old Zhang somehow acquired lots of materials and invited me and others to weave brooms..."
"He nagged me all day, couldn’t stand it, decided to give it a try."
"Unexpectedly, after trying it, Run Dong Weaving Plant was born."
In the country village at that time, brooms are mostly made from various crop stalks, like sorghum, bundled together and woven with wires into brooms.
Also can be woven into items for cleaning pots, except for shedding and being a bit rough on hands, they have no other disadvantages.
But those things hadn’t been industrially produced, especially in Zhengyang City, a heavy industrial city!
So, they easily monopolized the market.
But even with this, due to low prices and low profits, it’s still only enough to get by.
Yet a full meal was enough...
Until...
"Someone wanted to buy the factory."
Liu Jinshui took a deep breath, smoking, showing wistfulness and once again falling into reminiscence.
"Someone wanted to buy the factory, they estimated its price...."
"Offered tens of thousands, their attitude very firm."
"Old Zhang wouldn’t agree..."
One wanted to buy, one refused to sell.
If it were a regular city, the buyer might just give up, but...
This is Zhengyang City!
"Forced acquisition came up."
